Op-Ed: Berkeley must restore the mural in Ohlone Park

Twenty years ago the late Dona Spring, a City Council member, asked Stephen Most to find an American Indian artist to paint a mural on the BART vent building in Ohlone Park. The building was a graffiti-covered eyesore and the city, having recently changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day, wanted to honor the Ohlones, who are native to this land.

Today the mural, which was painted by California Indian artist Jean LaMarr, is in dire need of restoration, says Most in an Opinionator piece published on Berkeleyside. The city’s efforts to clean and restore the mural to date have been uncoordinated, inadequate, and unintentionally harmful, he says.

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